live from the Hermitage

To rest my feet and my eyes and my brain, I have come down to the cafe and services level of the Hermitage where a nice german man gave me his leftover minutes at the internet cafe. Beats paying, every time.

I'm here alone, thank god, as it's hard enough aggressively elbowing my way through the hoards of tour groups who follow plastic sunflowers or rolled newspapers held up in the air by their "leaders". I stand in on the odd explanation, but generally find it more interesting to take my own personal "discovery" tour of the place, which means I run around in circles and see many of the same things twice (often without realizing it, I'm guessing) and probably missing a lot of things too. so be it. Really, you can't come to the Hermitage once.

But I'm blogging from here because I can. And Betty wanted me to tell her what the Hermitage smells like, and all I can say (and I've been taking in nostrils-full from time to time as I move through the rooms) is that much of it smells like sweet water, mould/mold (?), damp air...and it was not until I got to the floor with Picasso, Matisse, Gaugin, Cezanne, and Monet that the odors became less dense, much lighter, airy. Somewhat matching my mental state which seemed to deteriorate the more nursing madonnas, speared and bleeding, and dying, saints, gored pigs, horses and yowling dogs that I saw...so, the antidote is some contemporary art I think, not here that I can find although somewhere in this maze is an exhibit of Dennis Hoppers photography. Hollywood stars I think, and since he sniffed all that stuff in Blue Velvet, maybe I will identify more with his aesthetic. It's not that I can't admire the art of painting; I just am not a consumer of such embedded darkness surrounded by bucolic scenery and winged cherubs.

So, having said all that and horrified the asethetes among you, I will go now and see if I can find a print of Monet's Waterloo Bridge. I just ate a horrid slab of carbohydrates covered with tomato sauce worse than anything I ate in Havana called by the name of pizza, and a bottle of water. Thus, I will not faint.

gotta go. the ticker on my timer is ticking.

Anne